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Canada comes closer to implementing an Orwellian state by mandating adherence to the Critical Race Theory in its schools.
While the world’s attention is firmly focused on the crisis in Ukraine, the most assertive, radical liberal regimes in the world continue to undermine remnants of free speech, and are actively conducting an ideological offensive against Western values.
The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a particularly alarming example. Shortly after smashing Canada’s trucker convoy protests, it is now overseeing the introduction of the so-called Racial Equity in the Education System Act, also known as “Bill 67,” which many critics have labeled a direct threat to democratic values. Introduced by Laura Mae Lindo, a member of the progressive New Democratic Party (NDP), the legislation has been labeled by its promoters as an anti-racist bill, which it is, unless you are White, or happen to believe in individual liberties.
The controversial legislation, which has already passed its second reading in Ontario’s local parliament, describes itself as “the policy of combating racism, such as anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, anti-Asian racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia.” It defines racism as “the use of socially constructed ideas of race to justify or support the notion that one race is superior to another, whether consciously or subconsciously.”
Defining and naming concrete victim groups that the bill is supposed to protect, while ominously leaving out others, suggests an assumption that Canadian society can be divided into oppressing and oppressed races, and those belonging to one or the other are either guilty or are simply victims by default. It also freely operates with the notion, now widely accepted in liberal-progressive circles, that Whites are subconsciously racist, and should therefore be re-educated, or failing that, punished.
In exactly what way this punishment and re-education should be understood is clearly explained in the bill:
“Every person who disrupts the proceedings of a school or class through the use of racist language or by engaging in racist activities is guilty of an offense and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $200.”
“If the Minister learns, upon conducting an investigation or otherwise, that a member of the Council does not have a proven commitment to racial equity in the post-secondary education sector, the Minister shall require that member to take anti-racism training within the following six months.”
In other words, all employees in Canada’s educational system should actively “prove” their innocence by demonstrating their commitment to what the bill calls racial equality, which in reality means their acceptance of the tenets of Critical Race Theory, and its extremist, anti-White, and anti-Western derivatives. At the same time, the definition of “racist” is increasingly being used to suppress all dissent in Western countries, with Trudeau frequently resorting to describing Canada’s peaceful trucker convoy protest as such without citing any actual cases of racism. In fact, the movement was so peaceful that it increasingly became a threat to Trudeau’s efforts to use police to crack down on it. He eventually unleashed emergency powers to seize protesters’ vehicles, freeze protesters’ bank accounts, and break up the protest with force.
Canadian commentators have pointed out that Bill 67 “is based on a broad assumption that many Ontarians and school pupils are racists. Despite there being no substantial evidence to back up these claims, these ideas are being forcefully shoved down the throat of Canadians. Such slanted legislation offends every Canadian, let alone Ontarians. The planned anti-racism legislation actually aggravates the problem it is supposed to tackle. Also, keep in mind that this proposed legislation in Ontario could very well become Trudeau’s national policy in the future.”
Indeed, it is feared that Ontario’s Racial Equality Act could become a model for national legislation, and the proposed $200 penalties will gradually be increased in line with the increasing far-left ideological radicalization of the country’s leaders and opinion makers. In fact, Bill 67 already allows authorities to establish guilt by mere perception. In Canada’s new regime, simply hurting someone’s feelings or offending them can lead to state prosecution. In such cases, a defendant would have no real effective means of defending himself against such charges as “subconscious bias” or “belonging to an oppressive race.”
If accepted, the radical leftist transformation of the legal system would only be a step away from a national-socialist type of preventive penal system. In this, individuals and groups not guilty of any crimes could see their rights and freedoms curtailed in order to prevent them from ever engaging in illegal activities due to their theoretical propensity to do so based on their race, culture or history.
Canadian academic Jordan Peterson has described the legislation as “the most pernicious and dangerous piece of legislation that any Canadian government has attempted to put forward.” He said he believes the bill will make the subversion of Ontario’s education system mandatory to the radical leftist ideology called Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is the rapidly spreading anti-Western ideology combining both post-modern and Marxist thought based on the idea that all Western institutions are racist, sexist and discriminatory.
Peterson also points out that CRT assumes that history is a war between different identity groups, in which one group is always oppressing, and other groups always victimized and exploited. CRT dismisses the idea of a sovereign free individual, and of individual presumption of innocence, assuming that a membership in a group regarded as exploitative and dominant is sufficient to indicate the moral culpability of any member of that group. Bill 67 will mandate the introduction of institutions of inquisition in every educational establishment, warned Peterson.
Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives have also voted for the legislation. Only one MPP has voted against Bill 67, Belinda Karahalios, of the New Blue party.
Opinion by Daniel Deme for Remix News.
